Chris Preddle's poem in the recent issue of South stood out as something quite apart from the rest of the poems there, it seemed to me. I thought I'd better investigate, as I often do on such occasions. What I found was this collection published in 2010.
Since I know I'm not going to be able to avoid some comparison with Paul Muldoon, I might as well make it now. There is, in the word play, rhymes and intellectual games playing, something Muldonian going on here but it is distinctive and personal, a method of Preddlesque style that differentiates it from anything derivative. Poetry like this takes chances and can't afford to miss very often or, missing too many stepping stones, it gets drenched. These poems are sure-footed and confident, inevitably the result of some working as well as using a free imagination, but bring the rewards that work deserves.
One might also add a classical and informed historical range of references that bring to mind Geoffrey's Hill's austerely learned verse but Chris Preddle does not have a bleak outlook or grieve at the condition of the world. There is a genuine sense of continuity with history, a feeling of belonging with other people and places and an expression of some well-being, the 'console' in the title phrase taken from a poem offering a clue, that is on the observe side of any disillusion or alienation.
Holme is the final long poem in several parts set around Preddle's West Yorkshire environment and his wife and some family and -presumably- friends make regular appearances. There are 31 Variations on Sappho 95 which, I think, are exciting in their untamed free association. It would do them a disservice to attempt any sort of precis or analysis of anything as mundane as 'meaning', which I hope excuses me from any such forlorn project. There is 'love' among their shifting themes, as well as flowers, death, Gods and everything that can be insinuated from Sappho 95.
Most importantly, it is poetry to be enjoyed, a remarkable fairground ride through allusions and intricate echoes. If it's not an easy thing to do, I think it must be much harder to know when enough is enough and not go too far. The point about idiosyncratic, even 'experimental', writing is that if it doesn't work, failed experiments need not be published. Many soi-disant avant-gardistes don't seem to know that, publish and are thus damned. I'm not even sure Chris Preddle should be called 'avant-garde' in this decade as poetry assimilates this manner into its wide stream of legitimacy.
Two poems under the title Not Catullus eventually made themselves my favourite. The first is about a 'ruined villa' that wouldn't have belonged to the outre Latinist. It is very much predicated on the 'not', which allows any amount of association, the arches standing on,
a promontory, as he might have put it, poking into the bottom
of Lake Garda like Silenus' penis
I'm afraid that, for better or worse, lines like those stay in the imagination for a long time. Many of the less Catullus-like things in the book will do, too. This is a hugely impressive collection. Following up one promising poem from a magazine can pay worthwhile dividends. I'm glad I took the trouble.
